Artelligence for February 15, 2018

Play Fantasy Art Collecting Game for Free:We’re making the final arrangements for another round of Fantasy Art Collecting games for the London sales. If all goes well, there will be a game for Impressionist and Modern sales followed by one for Contemporary art. Each game will have cash prizes but there will be no entry fee. Sign up here to be notified when the game is open and ready to play. …

Get Off My Lawn!: Sotheby’s marketing team sent an email to the wrong list earlier this week and followed it up with a $20 voucher to use in the café at their New York headquarters. Imagine being so irritated by the mistake that you write this screed? “By the way, $20 will buy you a shakerato and a Chicken Caesar salad with shrapnel to spare in case you fancy strolling on down.” On the brighter side, we finally have evidence of the mythical free lunch. …

Irish Photographer Claims $1m Crypto-Art Sale:Somewhat reminiscent of Damien Hirst’s famous consortium pseudo-sale of his diamond-encrusted skull, “For the Love of God,” CNN reports that an Irish photographer who has previously claimed an undocumented €1m sale of a photograph, now says he sold a crypto-work on Valentine’s Day:

“The digital photo of a red rose sold to a group of 10 collectors who split the cost evenly in cryptocurrency. This is thought to be the highest price ever paid for virtual artwork. The project, called the Forever Rose, was produced by artist Kevin Abosch and GIFTO, virtual gifting platform on blockchain — a digital ledger. It’s the technology that supports cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, but in this case it’s hosting a digital picture.” …

Jonquil O’Reilly Joins Christie’s: Recently appointed VP, Head of Sale for Christie’s Old Master department, O’Reilly “joins Christie’s with expertise in Italian paintings, and has conducted research and contributed scholarly catalogue essays on Raphael, Botticelli and Canaletto. Ms. O’Reilly was formerly a senior specialist at another auction house in London and New York, where she worked for ten years. Ms. O’Reilly also has extensive knowledge of the history of dress in European art from 1500 to 1800, and uses the history of garments as a means of contextualizing Old Master paintings.” …

When the painting went on exhibition at LACMA in 2017, it was there as a short-term loan from the artist and his gallery Hauser & Wirth. But soon after it arrived, museum director Michael Govan, working with Hauser & Wirth, set about finding someone who would step up to purchase it for the permanent collection. “Through various connections, Jimmy and Liberty came to see it. It turned out weirdly the only time we could find was right at the 2017 Art + Film Gala […],” says Govan. […] Iovine recalls that he came to the November gala, whose honorees were Bradford and George Lucas, with David Geffen (who had just a few weeks earlier pledged $150 million toward LACMA’s capital campaign). “David got me into art collecting about six years ago,” says Iovine, who also counts friend Peter Morton as an informal adviser and often works with Sotheby’s vp private sales Jackie Wachter on growing his collection. “I must admit it’s addicting.”